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RogueyWon writes "South Park has long been vocal in its opposition to media censorship from any source, launching scathing attacks on everything from 'think of the children' moral crusades to the censorship of religious imagery. In a curious twist, therefore, Ubisoft, the publisher of the upcoming video game South Park: The Stick of Truth, has decided to censor certain scenes from the game's Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions from release in Europe, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. American versions, as well as the European PC release, so far appear to have escaped the censor's pen."

I dare say that it's a result of Ubisoft lazily deciding to produce and test only a single version for the quote-unquote international market, and having to meet the lowest-common-denominator levels of creative expression permitted in the Middle-Eastern and Australian regimes.

Ubisoft as nothing to do with this censorship btw. Ubisoft and other publishers do the games. It's the countries that makes the censorship so the main problem comes from those places...not the company. Look at Saint Row 4 problems in Australia. They dare censor and block the game but gave multiple different version of their blocking reasons...which changed from a day to day basis which made no sense. Censorship usually happens because of a lack of knowledge over computers, the game itself and the main reaso

Actually, if a publisher "removes" content from a game, that he himself is publishing, without any legal interferrence from a government or more precisely law or court, then it is not censorship, but his own decission, for whatever reasons.

Here's how it works: US companies submit their games to US ratings boards FIRST, then they remove shit the US censors don't like, and once the US censors approve it, they sent it to ratings boards in other countries, who sometimes remove OTHER stuff.

However, we, the consumers, never see the ORIGINAL version before the US censors make their cuts, because the game companies don't bother trying to put those things in non-US versions.

When the Australian classification board said no to a few things in Saints Row IV, a big fuss was made, but Volition have mentioned in the past that US ratings board said no to a few things, and there was no outcry.

From this, we learn: People are fine with censorship in the USA, but if it's allowed in the USA it should be allowed everywhere.

No, what we learn from this is that you are an idiot. Modifiying your own work to meet your business goals (get the rating you want) is not censorship, no matter how you try to spin it. Having to modify a work because some of the content is illegal is censorship.

I have no idea if they modified the other version because of laws (censorship) or because of business reasons (not censorship), but your 'lesson' is beyond idiotic.

Well, it's not the original meaning. (OTOH, the original censor was a Roman governmental official. Later it was a Papal office. Other governments came later, and were named by analogy to the church office.)

So the well-established phrase "self-censorship" (and the valid concept it expresses) either (A) doesn't actually exist, or (B) is used by experts in the fields of self-expression rights and chilling effects because they're dumber than you, Anonymous Coward.

The ESRB is a private industry group, and participation is entirely voluntary.

then they remove shit the US censors don't like

The ESRB doesn't care one way or the other. The "American" publishers tend to seek to avoid an AO ("Adults Only") rating, for marketing reasons, and will try to bring things down to an M ("Mature") rating so that certain big-name retailers will consent to carry the game. But games that get an AO rating are certainly free to keep that rating and have been published in the past, and publishers are free to skip the rating process entirely (e.g. I've seen more than a few localized Japanese H-games that don't bother formalizing the AO rating they'd obviously get).

However, we, the consumers, never see the ORIGINAL version before the US censors make their cuts, because the game companies don't bother trying to put those things in non-US versions.

Publishers don't sell an "unrated" version of a particular game in North America (ESRB includes Canada) because they know that not enough customers will go out of their way to find retail channels that will carry AO/unrated games to make the the prospect financially viable. Conversely, publishers don't sell an "unrated" version of a particular game in Germany or Australia because it would be illegal.

There have been a few games I've seen that didn't bother with the ESRB, they just got a PEGI rating and that keeps the retailers happy. Civ 4 was such a title. No ESRB rating, even in the US, just PEGI. Kept Target, BestBuy, etc happy. Retailers don't seem to be that fussy about the rating system used, they just seem to want one. So supposing the ESRB were being dicks, but PEGI was being reasonable, a company could use the PEGI rating instead and that would work just fine in the US.

Technically, none of this (even the MPAA) is censorship to begin with, because none of these entities are government related (at least in the U.S.) - the reason the studios have their films rated by the MPAA is because of commercial considerations (many theaters refuse to show unrated or even NC-17 films), same as the ESRB (the latter being so inconsequential that no chain or store I know of refuses to stock M-

here is a difference between 'remove this content or you'll get an M/T/AO rating' and 'remove this content or we will outlaw your product.'

If a product is not censored down to M or lower, then Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony Computer Entertainment will outlaw it. Console makers don't want AO games on their platforms, and national legislation implementing the WIPO Copyright Treaty outlaws going around the console game vetting process.

Bethesda got in trouble with the ESRB for omitting a graphically wounded hanging corpse when submitting Oblivion for review.

I'd bet a lot of films submitted to MPAA and video games submitted to ESRB fail to declare the same thing, especially given the habit of displaying an image of Jesus of Nazareth nailed to a cross among members of cer

Anything to incite civil unrest against a group of people(no, the government doesn't count) and lies to discredit people.

That pretty much means NO criticisms against religion - especially Islam.

The things that are done in this World in the name of [insert religion - including Buddhists ] is appalling. The religious fundamentalists, unwilling and unable to adjust to the modern World, are bullying everyone else with violence, lobbying and other political maneuvering and outright lies - like Creation Museums.

There's a point when you just have to stand up to the bully. Those people need to be told - shouted down - that they are backwards, full of shit, and if they are going to live among us, they need to STFU.

Or compromise like the Amish do in the US. I highly respect those folks. They stick to their values, they don't try to force them on others, and they found a way to live peacefully and well with the modern World.

... it *is* worth remembering that very few people have bothered to actually look at what the creationists are presenting as evidence.

I've tried, but all too often I cringe when confronted with circular arguments and the dreaded square brackets [to emphasize what was really meant] in a passage, so as to prove something - the Quran Project did exactly this in an advert in our local newspaper, it was littered with square brackets where the publicists had filled in what the prophets had "really meant" but clearly felt didn't need to be described unambiguously at the time of writing.

Myanmar. 'Nuff said. Look it up. The Buddhist right wing clergy are being assholes.

That's disingenuous. Those assholes are dressing up as monks for fun and for profit, not "in the name of Buddhism" (even if that's what they say), and despite the great incentives in that country for assholes to dress up as monks, many of those monks are genuine Buddhists.

Despite Buddhisms many wrong notions (like reincarnation), meditation is immensely powerful. It's like martial arts for your brain. It significantly improves concentration, focus and clarity as well as being a tool that can readily create

We do not know that, and neither do you. We live in a mystery in that regard. All we can do if we want to be truthful is admit we don't know what happens after death. We simply don't know. That's the truth

There's lots of evidence that thinking and consciousness require a functioning brain, therefore it is reasonable to believe that you cease to exist if your brain decomposes. At this point, if you want to believe in an afterlife, you need to propose a mechanism for transmigration. The wikipedia page on Bardo [wikipedia.org] says "The intermediate being...existence is demonstrated by the fact that it cannot have any discontinuity in time and space between the place and moment of death and those of rebirth, and therefore it

Well. you should keep in mind this is THEIR world. The various flavors of religious folk do outnumber us all across the planet. Maybe we should be grateful that at least they still let us live here. Well.. most of them do.. for now anyway...

There was an episode where they had an episode of Family Guy briefly show Muhammad, and so in real life, everyone got pissed off at Family Guy for showing Muhammad, even though Family Guy had done nothing.

FYI, the threatened riots(and death threats) with regard to South Park and said prophet were by a trolling organization dedicated to making American Muslims look bad. I don't doubt that there would have been some very angry people over it, but the cited reason Comedy Central actually pulled the segment was internet trolls. It's like if we took AC posters on slashdot seriously.

Correct. Its about intentionally setting the crowd off down the road with a command to go riot. If people choose to riot on their own after a speech, no matter how heated it may be, well, that is the way it goes.

To make an analogy to a copyright doctrine established in Sony v. Universal and other cases, perhaps some kinds of speech should be considered "contributory rioting" if they're made with the intent of causing others to riot.

You'll find that I disagree with many laws and do not think laws are necessarily moral.

So on what grounds do you disagree with the reasoning applied in MGM v. Grokster and other cases that establish an "inducement" or "incitement" legal theory?

Perhaps it's about protecting the public from people who [could plead insanity]

That makes no sense to the topic at hand, which is about free speech.

I was referring to riot-related speech restriction. Let me reword it to tie it into the topic: Some people might not construe free speech to cover knowingly speaking in such a manner as to incite undiagnosed insane people within earshot to riot.

Some speech poses a clear and present danger of violence, when you have the attention of an angry crown. "That one over there, he don't look right to me, get him up against the wall!" Specific calls for immediate violence against available targets are really the only place where "prior restraint" makes sense.

It's not about blame, it's about responsibility. When you can avoid people being killed by choosing a better time, place, or manner in making your point, that's a reasonable expectation. Conspiracy to commit murder is certainly a crime, and it doesn't matter whether it a friend or stranger that you convince to murder someone you don't like, it's still quite reasonable that it's illegal.

We're not talking about publication and censorship here. We're talking about telling people directly to go kill someone

Are you really saying that "conspiracy to commit murder" should be legal? That if I convince my friend to kill you on my behalf, as long as he does the actually killing then I'm just "exercising free speech"?

Again, this isn't about publication and censorship, it's about something far more direct.

Are you really saying that "conspiracy to commit murder" should be legal? That if I convince my friend to kill you on my behalf, as long as he does the actually killing then I'm just "exercising free speech"?

Wow, really, not both? Well, I've never heard of a legal tradition that worked that way. Sounds iffy to me. I like the idea that the rich aren't just paying people full time to murder everyone who annoys them (hmmm, when I put it that way, I guess that's feudalism, so it has been tried!).

"Fighting words" are one of the specific exceptions to free speech in US law. It doesn't come up much these days, because people are more restrained, but it used to be a big deal. Saying something that "everyone knows" will provoke violence means, legally, you started the fight, even though the other guy threw the first punch.

You also don't have the right to speak though a bullhorn outside your neighbor's window at 2 AM. It's not the content of the speech, it's the time, place, and manner.

There is no such thing! There is ALWAYS a man in the middle. The man who acts, and only the man who acts is solely responsible for his actions. "Following orders" is no excuse. You either control yourself or you don't. The law exists only as political expediency to protect authority.

Inciting to riot is basically a conspiracy charge, however it's a special one because it's being done in public and so violence could theoretically be prevented by law enforcement in some cases (though in practice I doubt it).

What you describe is political correctness. Where does it stop? Each one of us is a member in various groups of people: male/female, some race(s), social level, fitness level, etc.

PC is very bad for society because it stifles freedom of speech by creating polarised taboos. They're polarised in that, for any given topic, some people (usually the perceived underdogs) are allowed to speak negatively while others are not, regardless of the truth. Ironically, although PC tries to appear anti-bigotry, it is i

Censorship is typically used by the powerful to maintain their power. This is no different in a democracy -- the power hungry simply jump through an additional hoop of stirring up many people to join in the censorship. These people happily re-elect said censor.

If this does not highlight the difference between freedom and democracy for those of you who think mass approval is the necessary and sufficient, indeed only, justification for wielding power, I don't know what will.

I'm sure you can find the article if you look for it - I can't recall where it was at the moment - but this has all been known for many months and the publishers explained it at length. It's not "censorship", it's localization. Particularly when a private company is doing it on a consumer product.

The article went into each country and why they did it. And the graphic nature of the game was shocking even to me, who watches Game of Thrones and True Blood, LOL. Like, mini

I'd suggest reading the summary and realizing that 1. The censor is Ubisoft and 2.Ubisoft is not a location or government. Although, if you weren't able to understand that from the short summary, I'm probably just talking to myself here.

Everybody's blaming Germany, but the nature of the content that was actually cut might imply that the cause is elsewhere. Not that I want for a moment to excuse Germany's censorship policies, which are ludicrous.

But the cut content is basically - anal probe aside - mostly abortion related. The EU still contains some very, very Catholic countries. In Spain in particular, it's a real no-go topic. Also in the Republic of Ireland and Poland to some degree (though less so there than it would have been a couple o

What I want to know is why German gamers and other younger people (who are presumably sick and tired of getting censored versions of games and other media with e.g. robots replacing humans or e.g. suicide bombers who "run away" instead of blowing themselves up) aren't rising up and using some sort of political influence/lobbying/petitioning/etc to get the censorship crap removed...

It worked in Australia and got the government to change the laws on video game censorship and classification with the addition o

The general rule is that EU censors couldn't care much about sex, but will grow very concerned about violent content. The US censors are the other way around - violence is rarely any type of problem, but even a hint of sex can invoke their ire.

The GTA Hot Coffee incident is a good example. Glorification of gang culture, player characters committing and rewarded for violent crime, gun fights, car theft, mowing down pedestrians for extra points and shooting police officers? That's all just harmless fantasy. B

Actually, we're generally much more prone to censorship here in Europe. Many of the countries in the EU have hang-ups on particular issues for historical reasons (eg. Germany on Nazi imagery and violence, France on the use of other languages). Many countries are also developing exciting new hang-ups and things they can censor, driven mainly by the three prongs of the Islamic far-right (pushing hard for new blasphemy laws), the authoritarian left (in thrall to both multiculturalism and radical feminism, both of which depend upon censorship) and an overbearing security culture (well... see pretty much 50% of slashdot's front page stories). And the general approach taken by the EU is to adopt the most draconian elements of each member nation's policies. If we get through the next German presidency of the EU without its ridiculous censorship standards being forced on the whole of Europe, we shall be extremely lucky.

Individuals and corporates in the US certainly practice self-censorship. But you are much more likely to encounter state-censorship in Europe - and it's getting more likely all the time.

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Most censorship in the US you see is self censorship of one variety or another. Like on TV, the only thing the government steps in on is over-the-air channels. The airwaves, belonging to the public, are regulated by the government. On cable? Do what you like.

So why then do cable channels censor/regulate various things? Well they internally decide what they want to show, what they are ok with. Usually this is based around what advertisers want and what kind of audience they target. But they are welcome to ch

The point about France was regarding the fact that the country has an official regulator for its language. A regulator which has quasi-legal (though thankfully no longer legal) powers to prohibit the use of languages other than French in public communications in France.

The blasphemy laws point has been an active point of debate in many EU countries over the last few years - ever since the mohammed-cartoons controversy. There was a major debate in the UK around the Racial and Religous Hatred Act 20

It could be more tasteful; but I'm not such a wimp that I can't handle the low brow stuff they need to appeal to all those people who barely grasp the satirical parts of it... People who probably would think Colbert is real or boring. If you get over some of your touchiness you may even find some of the vulgar elements humorous on a different level; I'm surprised when it happens and glad I decided to be open minded.

Plus people who are willing to take on social mores and norms are usually going to take on s